How It Works
Understanding Diamond Pier & Pin Pile Technology
Pin Foundations, Inc., manufacturer of the Diamond Pier, has been designing and manufacturing foundations for over 25 years. One thing has always driven our thinking; The Earth is the actual foundation, and soils, in their natural undisturbed state, have the strength and structure to do the job.
That's why the Diamond Pier is based on Pin Pile Technology. Pilings keep the Earth’s existing soil strength and structure intact, and are easy to install if they do not need to go too deep. Traditional footings spread loads more widely, but the digging breaks apart the soil, weakening it and blocking or exaggerating water flow.
By grouping short bearing pins, which can easily be driven into intact penetrable soils, and setting them at angles to work more like a shallow footing, a sound foundation can be constructed that requires no excavation.
Emulating Nature's Perfect Design
- Like tree roots, Spread Pile Engineering transfers the load of your project to a greater area of soil below. The pins lock, preventing the head from moving up and down.
- Uplift resistance forces frost heaved soils to cleave around the head.
- Bearing forces spread out in an A-shaped cone distributing load over a greater area of undisturbed soils
Diamond Pier Equivalency
Diamond Pier footings are an equivalent alternative to traditional concrete piers.
DP-50/50 = A Diamond Pier DP-50/50 will support up to the same load as a 20" x 48" traditional concrete footing in 2000 psi soils.
DP-75/63 = A Diamond Pier DP-75/63 will support up to the same load as a 24" x 60" traditional concrete footing in 2000 psi soils.
See the Diamond Pier Load Chart for a full look at Diamond Pier's Equivalency.
The Diamond Pier Foundation System
PFI’s innovation is to bring pin pile technology into common use with a superior connector—the Diamond Pier concrete head. This high-strength, precast component is a driving guide, a pin piling lock, and a structural connection all in one.
As a driving guide, the pier maintains the pin angles so that their capacity is definable and consistent. As a lock, the pier is designed to increase its grip on the pin cluster when loaded up, down, or side- ways—getting stronger and tighter as loads increase. And as a connection, an embedded anchor bolt and precast, post-matching shape make it a simple and proportional complement to its supported structure.
The Diamond Pier provides a solid, stable, economical foundation that both captures and preserves the supporting strength and natural functions of the Earth’s soil and, in turn, solidly and simply connects to and protects the permanent structures above.